March 27, 2008

Kyle Jameson goes full cycle through Summer Gravity Camps

DECLINE Magazine

I’ve had the best three summers of my life going to the summer gravity camps (SGC). Run by Andrew Shandro, SGC is a valuable experience for any age of rider. At the camp, you receive coaching at its finest. Between the Whistler Bike Park, dirt jumps, skatepark and the air dome, you can ride all aspects of mountain biking in one week to hone your skills. Best of all, you become friends with awesome coaches such as Wade Simmons, Kirt Voreis, Tyler Morland, Thomas Vanderham, Jordie Lunn and Cam McCaul. If you want to expand your riding capabilities, this is the best way to spend a week of your life.




Introduction
When I was 13 years old, my friends were taking a road trip up to Whistler with their dad. I wanted to go so badly, but their car was full and there wasn't any room for me. Man, I was bummed. Fortunately, my mom looked into it and found a week-long summer camp at the Whistler Bike Park called the Summer Gravity Camps; I had never heard about it before. At first, I was pretty skeptical about this camp, going to Canada for the first time and attending a summer camp. But then she told me about how you get to ride with all these super sick riders like Dave Watson, Wade Simmons, Thomas Vanderham and Andrew Shandro. At the time, I was an avid viewer of Kranked 5, so I knew who those guys were and was amped to ride with them. An opportunity to get to ride Whistler with amazing shredders for a week sounded super fun. Plus, SGC lift-line priority, which means the campers can go straight to the front of the line.

I told my mom that I wanted to go, so when July rolled around I was off. I had no idea who I was going to meet or what was going to happen; all I knew was that I wanted to ride as hard as I could.




From Student...
The first thing that happens once you get to the Tantalus - the hotel that everyone attending SGC stays at - is Steve-O sets everyone up with rooms and passes for the bike park. Once I got my room, I started to make some new friends, and now these friends are friends for life. I was roomed up with two other Kyles and a kid named Bret. In fact, I still keep in touch with them and one of the Kyles is now one of my best friends and partner in crime. All the kids that come to SGC are here for one reason and that is riding mountain bikes, so it's pretty easy to meet new friends.

The camp runs for eight days and has a daily schedule. During the week, you ride from 10am to about 4 or 5pm. I rode the hardest I have ever ridden before, working muscles that I did not even know you used to ride bikes. After a sick day of riding we would go to Lost Lake to hang out on the beach and play Frisbee, King of the Dock and swim around.

There is tons of fun to be had at Lost Lake. You pretty much hang out with the coaches the entire time, except for dinner when you have the option to find food on your own. But I ended up eating with the coaches because they were all pretty cool. Kids up to 19 years old have an 11pm curfew, so there's not too much horsing around and kids don't stay awake all night. You get in so much riding during the week that you end up falling asleep pretty easily, anyway. I know that I did.

The last night of camp was Saturday and the coaches always have pizza and prizes. These prizes aren't just some repetitive stickers and a t-shirt. They are desired things like a new suspension fork, JBL headphones or a complete Shimano Saint group, sick stuff. I don't remember what I won that year because it was my birthday and right after the prizes, the coaches brought out a birthday cake! I was so shocked; I remember getting super teary-eyed and not knowing what to say. After that, I knew that I wanted to come back to SGC the next summer.

At the camp, I developed a really good relationship with the camp director, Andrew Shandro. When I was younger, I looked up to him as a mentor and he's really cool friend to have. At the time, I didn't know that not only would he be my friend and mentor, but also my boss one day.




...To Teacher
During the winter of 2006, I was in Aptos, California, hanging out and riding with some of my good friends. Andrew (Shandro) and The Collective guys were there to doing some filming with Cam McCaul, so I told Andrew that I was extremely interested in coaching camps and I would work my ass off for him. He told me that he would think about it. In about a month I was on the coach's list for one week in July.

Coaching for Andrew has been my dream since I first began attending his camps six years ago. This past season, I received the opportunity to show him that I had learned from his tutelage and could supplement my SGC background with bits of my own knowledge learned along the way.

Going into my first day of coaching, I was really nervous because I had never done it before. Out of the 45 kids at the camp, I had to be responsible for five (the camper to coach ratio at SGC is at least six to one.) These kids were relying on me for a good day of coaching and fun in the bike park.

I thought that Shandro would give me the full low-down of exactly what I was supposed to do, but he didn't. I think that he was testing me... I guess he figured I'd been to camp for six years and by now, I should know the basics.

On our first run, we dropped into B-Line with all of the kids. I couldn't help but to remember what being a camper was like and that feeling made me extremely excited to be a coach.

When we split into our groups, I realized that I had some really awesome kids. The kids that come to the camp usually want to ride A-Line all day, so the hardest part as a coach was trying to keep every camper in one piece.

Before long I began to understand my duty as a coach: Giving tips to catch air for the first time and corner properly was amazing, I couldn't believe I was doing it, my dream! It was so sick. I really started to get into it and began to bond with these kids, it was clear they started to trust me. That's a big part of coaching - achieving respect from your student. When the student respects the teacher, they can trust the coach's judgment and truly begin to learn.

After lunch, my campers wanted to go down A-Line so badly that they would not stop talking about it. We had to visit the most ridden mountain bike trail in the world. Halfway down, one of the campers went over the bars - damn. This was a big fear of mine, the reason why I did not want to go down A-Line on the first day was feeling responsible for the kids. I was thinking, "Man, Andrew's going to fire me on the first day. I've killed a kid!" Luckily, the camper was a resilient little guy, which they all tend to be.

After riding the bike park, I went up to the Air Dome with some campers to practice some tricks. SGC has exclusive use of the Air Dome between 3 and 5pm during the camp, so there is no waiting in line, just like our chairlift access, which is sweet.

I got a chance to talk to Steve-O about the A-Line incident and he made me feel a lot better. He told me that it happens every year. And thinking back to when I was a camper, I can remember someone crashing on the first day, all three years. I realized that the best thing you can tell your students is to take it super easy the first day because we'll have the chance to ride a lot during the week.

The following days of riding and coaching were even better then the first. All the groups are pretty much sorted and it was time to get your shred on: Riding the bike park, going to Lost Lake and riding the dirt jumps for hours with your own crew of campers. Six days of riding the Whistler Bike Park for seven hours a day, plus riding Air Dome and the municipality dirt jumps is a lot of riding. I was really tuckered out but Steve-O asked me to stay on as a coach. I must have done something right after all.




The Real Deal
After I finished my first week of coaching, I realized that it was not as easy as I thought, and man was I pooped! With two more weeks ahead of me, I was really exited. As I continue to coach, I start to coach myself and become more conscious of my own technique when I ride. Now, when I ride I am constantly thinking about how to properly articulate and explain to others what I'm doing on my bike.

Today, coaching mountain bike riding skills is my life. I love teaching and helping people become better mountain bikers because I want everybody to love biking as much as I do. To me, this is the best job in the whole world and Summer Gravity Camps are the best camps that you could ever attend. It's crazy to see a lot of progression in one week, with kids and adults.

I had always wanted to make riding my bike a job but I could never figure out how to make it happen. Now, I've learned that if you love what you do and you have a goal or a dream then you should never give up and never let anyone tell you that you are not capable of reaching it. Persistence and a happy outlook on life is the key to doing anything.